Illidan Stormrage (tactics)
:This article is about the in-game raid boss. For character biography and Warcraft III appearances, see Illidan Stormrage. Illidan Stormrage is the final boss of the Black Temple in Shadowmoon Valley. As of Burning Crusade, Illidan is the most powerful in-game boss in World of Warcraft. For a video of his encounter starting, see Illidan Stormrage (video). Abilities Normal Form: *Melee strike - Illidan melees from 6k to 8k on plate *Shear: Reduces the health of his current main aggro target by 60%. Shear has a 1.5 second cast time and so the main tank must be ready to use Shield Block (which mitigates the attack). *Flame Crash: Illidan jumps up high and lands in a patch of blue flames directly underneath his current position. The flames deal 5k fire damage per second. 10 yard radius. They remain on the ground for 2 minutes. 1.3 sec cast. *Draw Soul - Illidan will drain targets in front of him in a similar way to Cone of Cold, dealing 5k shadow damage and healing Illidan for 100,000 HP. Shadow based spell. Resistible. *Parasitic Shadowfiend - Random raid members will be targeted with a Parasites debuff lasting 10 seconds and dealing 3k shadow damage every 2 seconds. Once this debuff has ticked off, 2 Parasites will spawn at the affected player's location and attempt to melee whoever is highest on global threat (generally a healer). If they are successful in this melee attack, the targeted raid member will receive the Parasitic Shadowfiend debuff. Parasites have around 6k HP. *Agonizing Flames: Illidan will randomly target a player and cast this, dealing 4000 initial fire damage to the target and anyone within 5 yards, and giving them a debuff which causes fire 3k damage every 5 seconds for 1 minute. He will only use this ability in night elf form in phase 3. *Enrage - Increases damage and attack speed after a time during phase 5 Demon Form: *Shadow Blast - Illidan will Shadow Blast the target highest on threat for between 8k and 11k shadow damage. This Shadow Blast has a splash effect - raid members within 20 yards of the affected target will receive the damage from the spell. Resistible. *Flame Burst - Illidan throws fire upon the entire raid for around 3.5k damage every 10 seconds. Players within 5 yards of each other will receive splash damage from this ability. Resistible. *Shadow Demons - During this phase Illidan will spawn 4 Shadow Demons at his feet that target random raid members and paralyze (stun) them. The demons will then slowly move towards the players in question; if they reach one of the players then he/she will die and the demon will target somebody else. The demons have around 22k HP. *Aura of Dread - A 15 yard aura surrounds Illidan dealing 1000 shadow damage every second to raid members within 15 yards of him, and also increasing Shadow Damage taken by 30%. This effect stacks over time. Flying in air: *Fireball: casting time 2 sec, Deal fire damage 2550-3450 in 10 yards radius. *Eye Blast: Illidan will sweep a fiery blue beam, emanating from his eyes, across the platform every 30 seconds. This deals around 19750-20250 fire damage on initial hit and spawns Demon Fire on the ground for 1 minute. *Demon fire: This is the blue fire trail left on ground by Eye Blast. It deals 2000 fire damage per second if you stand in it, which you shouldn't. *Dark Barrage: Illidan randomly chooses a player and places a dark eye beam on him, which deals 3000 shadow damage per second for 10 seconds. Flames of Azzinoth: *Health: around 1 million *Melee hit: They hit for around 2-3k fire damage on 385 fire resistance, and can both crit and crush. *Blaze: The Flames will leave a cloud of yellow flame underneath them on the ground, which deals 5000 fire damage per second. Two different Blazes in the same location DO stack. *Flame Blast: Frontal cone 15 yard AoE which deals 7000-9000 fire damage. *Enrage/Charge - Each blade on the ground has an invisible aura with 25 yard range that grants immunity to charge from *both* elementals (i.e. you only need to be under of affect of one of the auras), if anyone steps outside this aura or an elemental gets further than 25 yards from its own blade they will charge/enrage and wipe the raid. Hard Enrage - After 25 minutes Illidan will enrage killing the entire raid at once Strategy Phase 1 The Illidan encounter begins once a raid member has spoken to Akama, who waits at the entrance to the Temple Summit. Akama and Illidan then engage in dialogue which ends with Illidan's famous quote, "You are not prepared!" Once Illidan has said this he is then attackable by the raid. The main tank should pick him up and immediately turn him away from the raid to avoid any raid members other than himself taking damage from Draw Soul. Phase 1 is in essence a "tank and spank" fight with a few added twists. Shear has a 1.5 second cast and so the main tank must be ready for it. If Shield Blocked, it poses no threat whatsoever, but if not, it will reduce the tank's health by 60% (this ability also means a feral druid cannot main tank Illidan). If this does occur, the tank's only option would be to Shield Wall through it, or pray that Illidan does not do any large hits or crushing blows. Every so often Illidan will jump up high and land, using his Flame Crash ability. He will need to be moved when this occurs, as the Flame Crash ticks for 5k fire damage around is landing area. Be sure to consider the melee and raid's position when moving him, as you do not want them to be affected by Draw Soul. The raid itself has a fairly easy job, DPSing Illidan down and keeping the Main Tank alive. The only thing to be aware of is his Parasitic Shadowfiend debuff which he will target a random raid member (including the main tank) with every 30 seconds. Affected raid members should move out of the main body of the raid, and ranged DPS should be assigned to kill the Parasites which then spawn, making sure not to be melee'd by them, as a single touch from the Parasites will spread the debuff to the melee'd person. Healers make sure to heal the "infected" raid member. If the main tank is affected by the Parasites, the melee should back off whilst the ranged DPS take care of the adds. Once Illidan reaches 65% HP, Phase 2 will begin. Phase 2 At 65% HP Illidan will fly up into the air and stay up there. At this point the entire raid should move to the centre of the Summit, over the metal grate in the floor. Illidan will throw down the Twin Blades of Azzinoth into the floor at each side of the circular grate, and the Flames of Azzinoth will emerge next to the Blades. These fire elementals deal a large amount of fire damage and as such must be tanked in full fire resistance gear. The Flames themselves should be faced away from the raid and moved along the floor as shown, with care being taken to avoid their Flame Clouds where possible (yellow clouds which deal yet more fire damage to the tanks). The added twist to make this phase extremely challenging is Illidan's Eye Beam ability, which will run down tangentially to the central circular metal grate, over where the Twin Blades landed. The tanks must be aware of which side this beam is coming from and move accordingly, as to be caught in this beam is to die. The "lazer" part of the beam deals enormous shadow damage, whereas the trail on the ground is fire damage, these trails do not deal alot of damage so positioning the flames well is more important that avoiding them With the Eye Beam, the Flame Clouds and the high melee damage the Flames can do, this phase is not to be underestimated from a tank's point of view. The Flames themselves will charge any raid member that is too far away from them, a range of approximately 30-40 yards. This needs to be taken into account by the tanks as by moving the Flames in a particular way, they may find themselves being charged by the other tank's Flame. Once the Flame has charged, it will become Enraged and deal significantly more damage for a short time. Avoiding the charge is imperative, and the raid itself must not stray from the confines of the metal grate. This includes pets and totems. Whilst all this complex tanking is going on, the raid itself has many things to deal with. First off, healing is very intense during this phase. Healers must be assigned to the tanks; at least 2 dedicated healers per tank is required. The raid however is taking damage from Illidan himself in the form of Fireballs. These Fireballs hit for around 3k fire damage and have a radius of about 10 yards. They will randomly hit the central grate area in between Eye Beams, and unlucky positioning can result in players taking 4 or 5 hits. The key is to spread out as much as possible within the central area, and assigning raid healers - Shamans are excellent at this with their Chain Heal ability. Of course, do not spread too far, since the Flames will charge players standing too far away from them, and of course players can be caught by the Eye Beam if they do not pay attention. It is also possible to have the raid stand in 4 distinct groups, meaning at most 1/4 of the raid will be hit by any fireballs. With good healing and generous use of Fire Protection Potions, Phase 2 is fairly manageable. That is until of course you add in Dark Barrage. Illidan will target random raid members (including the 2 Flame tanks) with Dark Barrage - a massive attack that deals 30k Shadow Damage over 10 seconds. Healers must be ready to heal the affected person quickly. Dark Barrage can be removed with Cloak of Shadows, Divine Shield and Iceblock. While channeling dark barrage he stops casting fireballs, so all raid healer can heal the affected person. Once the Flames of Azzinoth are killed, Phase 3 will begin. Phase 3 Illidan will land in the centre of the metal grate area. It is important he is picked up and tanked facing away from the raid as in phase 1. Phase 3 is basically the same as phase 1 but with the introduction of Agonizing Flames, a particularly nasty ability that targets a random raid member and deals an instant 4k fire damage as well as ticking for increasing amounts of fire damage over 60 seconds, with final ticks of around 4k. The ability has a range of about 5 yards, so anyone standing too close to the affected person will also receive the debuff. Because of this, it is important that the raid spreads out efficiently during this phase. Paladin should use Divine Shield to remove this from themselves as with any other classes with immunity abilities. Do not forget that players will still be affected by Parasites during this phase. Phase 4 Phase 4 will happen every 60 seconds and lasts for 30 seconds, with time allowed for Illidan to transform in and out of demon form (so it actually takes about 50 seconds for phase 4 to start and finish completely). The actual transformation of Illidan takes about 10 seconds. It begins with him kneeling on the ground, and at this point the warlock tank should DoT Illidan up and start to cast Searing Pain repeatedly in order to be top of his threat list. At the end of the transformation, aggro is completely reset for Illidan, but DoTs cast before the transformation can tick and still cause threat after it, so it is important that the warlock tank has his own DoTs up during the transformation, and that the rest of the raid stops damaging him as soon as they see the transformation occur. The Aura of Dread that surrounds Illidan at melee range means that a melee tank in this phase would be very difficult to heal. It also means that no melee DPS can occur on him during this phase; all melee DPS should move back behind the healers and await the arrival of the Shadow Demons. Illidan will spawn 4 Shadow Demons during this phase which target random raid members and paralyse them, making a direct line to that member. If the demons reach the raid member, that member dies, so it is important that the raid stays at a fair distance from Illidan during this phase. That includes the warlock tank, who should make sure he is at maximum range from Illidan -- if the tank is killed by his shadow demon or by Illidan, a wipe will most probably result as Illidan begins casting his AoE spell at the next highest person on his threat list, probably one-shotting them. The warlock tank should initially keep casting Searing Pain until he is confident of his aggro, and then attempt to keep himself alive in any way he can. Shadow Ward should be used on cooldown, as well as Siphon Life (if you have it) and of course Drain Life. He can also move much further away once he has sufficient threat increasing the time dps will have to kill any shadow demon that might target him. The DPS should quickly focus on whichever demon has the shortest "life-line" to their target, as this is the person that will be reached first and is therefore most likely to die. Fast dps on the demons is necessary, as well as any slowing effects. Frost Traps, Earthbind Totems, Hamstrings etc should all be used where possible. Once the demons are dead the affected players are released from their stun and the phase continues as normal. Healers will need to keep the raid up as players will take heavy damage from the Flame Bursts; remember the raid needs to be topped up as he casts Flame Burst every 10 seconds. The warlock tank will require at least 4 dedicated healers (overkill but reduces chance of all being affected by shadow demons), but be sure to stay at least 20 yards away from him to avoid taking Shadow Blast splash damage. Illidan will switch between Phase 3 and 4 until he reaches 30%. The most important thing to remember during these phases is to stay spread out. Agonizing Flames, Parasites, Flame Burst and Shadow Blasts all require some sort of spreading from the raid. Bandaging and fire protection potions can be used to great effect in this phase as there is nothing for dps to do until the shadow demons spawn, bandage the first flame burst, fire pot the second and heal up the final one. Phase 5 At 30% HP Illidan will imprison the raid and question your ability to defeat him. At this point the cavalry will arrive in the form of Maiev Shadowsong. Maiev will aid the raid, meleeing Illidan and placing traps down every so often. These traps are the only way to stop Illidan's Enrage - he must be dragged to them once they are opened, and he will then be trapped for a short time (about 10 seconds) in which he will kneel forward with his hands on the ground, cease all attacks, and take extra damage from the raid. This sounds fairly easy, but it is quite hard for the main tank to see the traps and position Illidan correctly. It is also notable that, except when he is trapped, he is still doing all of his Phase 1 and 3 abilities, including Draw Soul, so the raid must not get caught in front of him. Spreading out is still a necessity. Once he has been trapped for a short period, Illidan will return to Phase 4, transforming into a demon. Then enrage however, only increases his melee damage and although he does hit incredibly hard, it is perfectly healable, it is infinitely preferable to keep him standing still and avoid shears and draw souls on the raid than to drag him around while taking extra damage and possibly missing a Shear. If a trap is placed close and in an easy spot by all means walk him over it, however if it is close to a wall or involves turning him towards the raid, it is probably best just to keep him still, maintain dps and heal the tank like madmen. The fight then consists of moving Illidan to the traps once they are placed and DPSing him as much as possible whilst he is trapped, or healing through the enrage. When not trapped he is still doing all of his previous abilities however, and is still quite capable of wiping the raid. He also continues to switch between demon and night elf forms on the same timer as before until killed. Quotes Beginning of encounter: * Illidan: "Akama. Your duplicity is hardly surprising. I should have slaughtered you and your malformed brethren long ago." Akama: "We've come to end your reign, Illidan. My people and all of Outland shall be free!" Illidan: "Boldly said. But I remain...unconvinced." Akama: "The time has come! The moment is at hand!" Aggro: * You are not prepared! Summon minions to attack Akama: * Come, my minions. Deal with this traitor as he deserves! Attack Maiev: * Feel the hatred of ten thousand years! Kill: * Who shall be next to taste my blades?! * This is too easy! Phase 2: * I will not be touched by rabble such as you! * Behold the flames of Azzinoth! Beam During Phase 2: * Stare into the eyes of the Betrayer! Metamorphosis: * Behold the power... of the demon within! Phase 5 Enrage * Feel the hatred of ten thousand years! Hard Enrage: * You've wasted too much time mortals, now you shall fall! When Maiev enters the battle: * Illidan: Is this it, mortals? Is this all the fury you can muster? Maiev: Their fury pales before mine, Illidan. We have some unsettled business between us. Illidan: Maiev... How is it even possible? Maiev: Ah, my long hunt is finally over. Today, Justice will be done! Death: * Maiev: It is over. You are beaten. Illidan: You have won... Maiev. But the huntress... is nothing without the hunt. You... are nothing... without me. Maiev: He's right. I feel nothing. I am nothing. Farewell, champions. Akama: The Light will fill these dismal halls once again. I swear it. Loot External links *http://www.forlornlegacy.net/showthread.php?p=3522#post3522 Hi-Def 900p Kill Movie by Buena of Windrunner, Forlorn Legacy. Category:Night Elves Category:Demons Category:Bosses Category:Instance:Black Temple